


goodbye girl

by perennial



Series: Prairie Tales [4]
Category: Peter Pan & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Real World, F/M, Old West, gangsters and gunfights and boarding houses oh my!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: "Captain," she says.He stops and turns back toward her, eyes quizzical."If my brothers die," she tells him, "I will kill you."A sudden smile lights his face. "I'd expect nothin' less."





	goodbye girl

**Author's Note:**

> [{the civil wars}](https://youtu.be/mLNc55q2V9o)

Figures explode out of the saloon like buckshot though a pillow. They hurl themselves at each other, landing punches wherever they can make contact, their twisting forms rimmed in gold from the light blazing out of the doorway behind them.

A cloud of bullets fills the formerly quiet street. Any locals not grouped around the saloon hurry for cover. Even the saloon’s most enthusiastic audience members watch cautiously behind corners and poles. The battling gangs show no caution, shooting generously, every fighter among them bloody-mouthed and eager to inflict pain.

xx

The sky lightens a shade and the birds start chirping. The landlady moves down the row of men, her mouth stern in concentration while she cleans cuts and wraps wounds. Her injured lodgers sit: silent, patient, heads bowed in utter exhaustion. The light from the the slowly paling sky colors their blood black, the shadows gray, their skin shades of blue.

Wendy crouches to get a better look at a split lip. She hands out wet cloths to hold to bleeding noses. She pours iodine and vinegar on gashes and contusions; her patients hiss but stay quiet.

The fourth in line holds up his hand: in the center of his palm rests his left incisor. She sighs and puts it in her apron pocket.

xx

A busy mountain breeze rattles the trees and sets a flurry of orange and yellow leaves loose in the air. The sky is watery blue, the sun is bright, and the wind carries the pleasant tang of decay.

Wendy waves to the group of miners drinking coffee on her porch and dodges a wagon carrying a load of timber up the hill to the mine. The street is a wave of motion: horses and wagons and wheelbarrows and dogs all hurrying somewhere, pickaxe points to be wary of, questionable wet earth to avoid. The door to the mercantile is propped open and the breeze bustles her inside. She smoothes her copper flyaways and smiles a greeting at the proprietor, who lifts his hand in acknowledgement and goes to fetch her order.

Next to the items on the counter she sets a roll of gauze and a bottle of iodine. The proprietor shakes his head, says: “Usual suspects? They had half the town awake until the small hours. Need us a sheriff.”

“You’ll lose half your business,” answers Wendy, and Lando shrugs in concession.

“P’raps you could wield your influence for good,” he says.

“Peter does what he likes and the rest do as he says. And if you think I’m going to run into the middle of a gunfight and tell a bunch of sharpshooters they oughtn’t get so angry over a card game, well, I prefer sleepless nights.”

He grunts and tells her the total. She counts out two dollars and sixty-four cents, all the while looking askance at the pile of supplies on the counter. She had forgotten how large the order is when only one set of arms is available to carry it.

Lando’s eyes light up. “You need help getting all this home, Wendy?” If she chooses to use his delivery service, it’s an extra fifty cents.

A voice says, “Allow me.”

She looks up in surprise. Standing behind her is James Hook: gang leader, thief, murderer, and the precipitating cause of the saloon battle last night. The bounty on his head is the reason half the people in town are here; the lethally sharp pickaxe head screwed into his right arm in place of a hand is the reason the bounty is still unclaimed.

“Least I can do,” he says. His dark hair falls across his forehead but doesn’t mask a gash at his temple. A purple bruise colors the edge of his jaw. He quickly pays for the pack of tobacco tucked under his arm and hefts her bag of flour onto his shoulder before Wendy can fully register what is happening.

She knows without looking that Lando’s eyes are the size of saucers. She schools her face into neutrality. “My thanks.”

“Lead the way.”

She has never spoken a word to the man following a step behind her. He fought in the war, she knows; that is why everyone calls him Captain; and most of his company have followed him into riskier adventures than the ones their war days held. Eventually they made a base in the hills around the mining town, where his pet project is trying to kill off the Pan gang when he’s not cheating his way through a poker game (so Peter claims) or robbing trains or holding up stagecoaches.

She is certain that before today he has never spoken a word to her, either. The sum of of their interactions are limited to passing each other on the boardwalk and culminate in Wendy averting her gaze whenever his eyes stray her way.

The ancient oak next to the boarding house glows orange as a fire. Wendy stops on the porch and sets down her basket with relief. Hook drops the bag of flour beside it.

“Why is it the least you can do?”

He says, “I broke your window in last night’s ruckus.” He gestures with his chin and she sees that one of the boarding house’s precious glass panes is shattered. She wonders where the bullet went.

Her brows gather in confusion. “How can you be sure it was you?”

He looks down at her, a slightly amused look curving his mouth. He touches his brim. “Mornin’, Miss Darling.”

“Captain,” she says.

He stops and turns back toward her, eyes quizzical.

“If my brothers die,” she tells him, “I will kill you.”

A sudden smile lights his face. “I’d expect nothin’ less.” He salutes her and resumes his leave-taking.

She hauls everything into the house and closes the door behind her, but the wind bangs it open and she finds herself standing in the middle of the room, watching him walk away.

xx

Nothing really changes.

Except that--

He starts tugging his hat brim when he sees her across the street

and her hands shake at the sight of him

and sometimes she doesn’t immediately notice him, and when she does it is to find his eyes fixed on her, waiting

and she can pick his voice out of a crowd.

The girl who crossed an ocean and half a continent never dreamed she would become a woman who housed a gang of murderers and thieves, and even worse, loved them all. She wonders just how many times she will transform before she is stopped or lost altogether.

The window is fixed without notice or fanfare; none of Peter’s gang can tell her who did it.

xx

Peter says, “You goin’ now? I suppose you need help.”

“If you’re busy--”

“Slightly will help you put everything away.” Slightly, sprawled on the stoop sharpening his bowie knife, scowls at their departing backs.

Thick grey clouds cover the sky like a blanket. A man in a red vest stands at the end of the boardwalk, his black hat blocking his face from view. Without looking Wendy feels Peter tense up.

“Ignore him,” she murmurs.

Peter can be charming when he chooses; but he rarely chooses. He was ambassador to the chief of a local tribe whose fondest wish was to see all the miners die in a pool of their own blood; bets were made across the entire town on whether Pan would treat for peace or fan the heat of their anger and come marching back at the princess’s right hand to oversee the town’s destruction. So it is a relief when he mutters, “Ignore who?”

As she steps into the shop, she sees Hook’s head lift, and he looks over just in time for her eyes to lock with his blazing blue ones - and then the sunless interior of the mercantile swallows her up.

“Three dollars seventy four,” says Lando. “And there’s a telegram for you, Wendy.”

“Thank you. We’ll put it on credit. The poker table owes me rent.” At a glance from the proprietor, her companion cheerfully confirms the truth of her words.

When they emerge back into the watery gray light of the street she cannot help glancing to her left. He hasn’t moved from where he’s propped against the hitching rail, slightly hunched against the cold; but this time his head is up and his eyes are looking her way. She jerks her head forward.

Peter flares up like a stick of dynamite. “See somethin’ interesting?” he bellows, striding toward Hook and letting the huge bag of flour slide down his shoulder slightly.

Wendy shouts, “Peter, no--”

The captain says, “Stop right there, boy.”

Peter grasps the ends of the flour bag, positions himself, and swings as hard as he can. The pickaxe hand raises in self-defense and rips a hole in the side. Flour cascades over both men.

Peter rears back to wind up a punch that he delivers directly to the captain’s left eye. Hook pitches back over the hitching post. Peter throws his head back and crows like a rooster: a summons.

Hook’s gang is never far from their master. Half of them pour into the street from the livery, where they have seen the whole tableau. Peter turns to face them as his own gang comes running, their guns and knives at ready.

Hook is briefly forgotten by everyone but Wendy. He is still on the boardwalk, bent at the waist with his hand to his eye. She pulls him away from the melee into the small gap between the saloon and the mercantile.

He seems to recover his wits in an instant: he grips her upper arm and pushes her against the wall of the saloon. “ _Go home_.”

“Leave!” she says. “Just _leave_ , he’ll stop if you aren’t here! Don’t fight them. Just leave!”

“Any other day I’d do anythin’ you ask. Not today.”

His face fills her vision. His hand is warm around her arm and his body blocks the cold. She says, “Please. Please go. Haven’t you realized yet that one day he might manage to kill you?”

He watches her face. “And what’ll you do the day he says you ain’t allowed to look at me?”

A bullet embeds itself in the shingle by their heads. He grasps her around waist and heaves her up, over the boardwalk, into the street, and tosses her ungently onto his great black beast of a horse. He smacks the horse’s withers and it takes off in the direction of the boarding house.

Wendy grips the saddlehorn and keeps her head down. Her hip bumps against the saddle with her apron pocket in between and her ears distantly register the crackle of paper.

xx

“John,” she says. “Michael. There’s a telegram.”

They look up from cleaning their rifles.

Michael says, “You alright?”

John says, “What’s wrong?”

xx

“Hear you’re leavin’.”

“My mother is unwell.”

“My condolences.” He doesn’t seem to want to keep speaking, but he doesn’t move. Eventually he nods to the crate she clutches and says shortly, “Carry that for you?”

They walk side by side to the boarding house. She says, “Ever been to London?”

“Nope.”

“It’s a real nice place.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She pulls her shawls tighter and crosses her arms over her chest.

They stop at the porch. “Tell me what train you’re on, when you know,” he says, “and I’ll keep away.”

She wonders if it’s too much to want - this. Too much to want a man who chooses a life like the one he has chosen. If it’s fair to wish he would alter himself if she needed him to; maybe if she only wishes it and never says it.

“Takin’ your fire-eater and his boys with you, I hope. We could use us some peace and quiet round here.”

“Enjoy it while you can.”

He tips his head back, looks down at her skeptically. “Who’s it you’re tryin’ to kid, Wendy? You ain’t comin’ back.”

“I got myself here once, I’ll do it again.”

He shakes his head. “That’s why you done give your boarding house to Lando?”

“Just to manage it while I’m away.”

“Easy to say that now.”

“I won’t be selling. This is my home.”

“Home? Shit, Wendy, you ain’t never gonna be one of us; you ain’t mean enough. And now you’re goin’ back to your ma and pa and folks just like you. Stone streets, baths every day, only bears is in cages. Worst you might hurt yourself on any given day is a papercut.” He holds out his hand. “Been nice knowin’ you, Miss Darlin’.”

She tries three times to speak before she can manage any words. Her heart pounds in her ears. “The other day--”

“Don’t,” he says. His face closes; his eyes belong to a stranger. He turns on his heel and walks away, and all she can do is watch him go.

xx

John will find out later that the fire was set by Belle, one of the local whores who had become infatuated with Peter and could not bear the thought of him leaving.

Wendy wakes up sweating. Her throat burns when she breathes in. She opens her bedroom door to a wall of smoke and heat.

She drenches her nightgown in the water in her washbasin, re-dons it, and goes to find her brothers.

xx

Hours pass before the blaze is contained. A crowd works in shifts to throw water on what is now little more than the black skeleton of a building. Wendy watches, curled on the ground against a wagon wheel, exhausted and covered in sweat and soot.

Everything is gone but their lives. Everyone is alive. Somehow - wonderfully, miraculously - everyone is alive.

A figure comes charging into the uneven light. He grabs another man by his shoulder and shouts, “Where is she?” The second man points.

Wendy pulls herself to her feet. She says, “James.”

Their arms are around each other in a moment. His face presses to her neck; her hands clutch his hair. His arms hold her so tightly her ribs hurt.

He loosens his hold enough to see her face. They babble over each other:

“You alright? You ain’t hurt? What happened?”

“What happened? Are you hurt? You’re bleeding--”

“Don’t mind it, it don’t hurt, all that matters is--”

“I’ll get the iodine,” says Wendy, before remembering she can’t. And with that she starts to cry: tears of shock and relief and delayed terror at how bad it could have been. He says nothing, because what is there to say? and wipes them away with his thumb.

She buries her face in his shirt. His chest is broad and firm and warm. She can feel him breathing and it steadies her.

He tips her face up and lowers his head. His mouth against hers is desperate and searing, the kind she’ll feel for days, and she wants it to go on forever, wants to be held and hold forever.

Speaking makes his chest vibrate. “Say you’ll stay.”

She shakes her head.

He looks around wildly, at the house, the crowd, her face. “I can’t go with you. Wendy, I can’t let you go.”

“Come hide with me in London.”

He is shaking his head before she’s even finished. “The bounty, I can’t-- A place like London’s easy pickin's for bounty hunters. Out here, mountains and plains, I can get away. This is the only place I got the upper hand.”

“Then you’re going to have to trust me when I say I’ll return to you.”

She takes his face in her hands and kisses him with her whole heart. It is meant to be a promise. She prays it isn’t a goodbye.

xx

Four days on the stagecoach, ten days on the train to Boston. Ten days on the liner to Liverpool. One day on the train to London, a cab’s ride to her parents’ house. It’s like her life is rewinding.

Every week a letter arrives and pulls her forward again. Every week she sends one back and it’s like throwing a rope across the Atlantic to catch hold in the future. Every week for two years.

xx

Figures stand on the train platform, hands in their pockets, hands shielding their eyes. The train rolls in and settles with a hiss and thick cloud of vapor.

She is at the window, palms pressed to the glass, her smile so big it’s a wonder her face can contain it, her heart beating so hard it hurts.

He grins up at her, eyes aglow, pure happiness in every line of his face. The dirt under his fingernails is the mark of a honest day’s ranch work. The pickaxe has been switched out for a wooden hand.

When they finally open the door she tumbles down the steps and launches herself at him. He gathers her into his arms and presses his mouth to hers, his hand cupping the back of her head, and it is as though all the sunshine in the world has come to rest in her heart.

xx

She twists her hand to and fro. Even in the darkness, the ring only needs the mere existence of light to make the metal glow.

She feels him shift behind her; his lips graze her bare shoulder.

“I did that too,” he tells her. She laughs.

His arm slides around her middle and he presses a kiss to the hair behind her ear. She twists around to catch his mouth with hers. Her thumb runs over his cheekbone and traces his jawline. Her eyes have been starved of his face for years; it seems even her fingers must keep looking, learning his features. He kisses her: slow and deep and loving.

In a few hours the sun will be hot and bright and the world will refill with color and noise and activity. The daylilies will unfurl, the hens will lay eggs, the corn pearls will grow fuller in their husks. But here, in this room and this darkness, the only things that exist are their bodies woven together, their breaths mingling, their hearts beating in tandem, while the unseen stars pass above.


End file.
